Email headers are that part of your email that contain the date, the subject, the information about who sent the email and to whom it was sent. Often you will be asked to provide “full headers” to a mailing organization, particularly if you are reporting spam, or a problem with email. That is so that you can help them to identify exactly who sent you the spam, and how they did it. Someone who is skilled at reading headers can usually see through even the most crafty attempt to falsify that information. Here is how to find those headers – it’s easy once you know how!

The mail header is the information that travels with every email, containing details about the sender, route and receiver. Think of the email header as a flight ticket – it can tell you who booked it (who sent the email), the departure information (when the email was sent), the route (from where it was sent and how it arrived to you) and arrival details (identity of receiver and when it was received). If you were to book a flight ticket using a false identity, you would quickly be stopped (hopefully!) by the authorities, and you’d never make it to your destination. Now imagine that same falsifying process being used for email – the result is often the same! In fact, that is one of the primary ways that spam is identified: falsified email headers!

Email applications usually display only the portions of the email header that are useful to their users. An entire email header actually contains code and data that help email applications to identify, sort and deliver email. Email programs also use information contained in the headers to filter and block certain senders, such as known spammers; this is one reason that, for businesses, using an ESP (Email Service Provider) with a good reputation and close relationships with ISPs (Internet Service Providers) helps to ensure that your email headers are up to snuff, and can be identified as belonging to legitimate email.

Here is an example of a full email header. Where the receiver, Jane, might only see:

Whew! That’s a lot, isn’t it? We’re not going to go into what each item in the header means; that’s another article for another time, and if you have been asked to provide full email headers, the person or organization asking doesn’t usually expect you to know what they mean, they just want you to send a copy of the full headers to them, and they will do the rest.

So, how do you find your full headers to send to them?

It’s actually pretty easy! Just select your webmail provider or email client below for instructions on finding headers for a particular message! Then, copy and paste the full headers and send them to whomever is requesting them!

GMAIL
• Log in to your Gmail account.
• Open the message you want to view headers for.
• Click the Down arrow next to the Reply button, located at the top right of the message pane.
• Select Show Original.

HOTMAIL
• Log in to your Hotmail account.
• Select Inbox from the left-side menu.
• Right-click the message you want to view headers for and select View Message Source.

EXCITE WEBMAIL
• Log in to your Excite account.
• Open the message you want to view headers for.
• Click the View Full Headers icon, located to the right of the From line.

OUTLOOK
• Open Outlook.
• Open a message.
• On the Message tab, located in the Options group, click the Dialog Box Launcher icon.
• In the Message Options dialog box, the headers will appear in the Internet Headers box.

For older versions of Outlook:
• Open Outlook.
• Open the message you want to view headers for.
• Click the View menu and select Options.

OUTLOOK EXPRESS
• Open Outlook Express.
• From your Inbox, find the message you want to view headers for.
• Right-click the message and select Properties.
• Open the Details tab in the Dialogue Box.